A Poet's Ash Poem by Thoughts of a Single Man

Death calls to me in the night

hard whispers of an old wicked friend

the culmination of my hearts bitter end

my spirit weeps in its solitude

as the revolutions of this

my crying world spins on its tortured axis

tears fall for the final time

as my moistened cheek is wiped clean

by the ever empty palm

I am the frolicking fool

the jolly jester of folly

the lackey of the fickle lords of love

that has danced his final ballet

in the public courtyard of crooked grins

and in my ignorance wandered too far

beyond the sealed gates of my sectioned reverence

I heard the sirens notes of loves melody

and journeyed once again to my hearts doom

the all consuming angst of my sorrow

twists in the darned threads

of yet another shattered tapestry

darned for the fetid soils of the sour fields of tomorrow

I am dead inside

the walking demised

the gawking surprise

no longer captured and watered

in the crushed petals of the repeatedly deceased roses

that flutter by my lonely bedside

I have been my robbed of all the strength

where the wants of the loving transpire

doused are the flames of it filthy fire

I have none left

gone are all the tears I have wept

I pray no more

for the elusive dove of kindred grace

to save me as I drown

I pray no more

for something tangibly real and profound

for I know these prayers once so earnest

fall on the ears of condemned

for there are none who hear it

I drift on the currents by the waters grave

prepared to greet it with my dying kiss

no longer held sweet in emulated emotions

but alleviated in the breath of a dying wish

I can resist this cruel fate no longer

I am weary

I am worn

I am the debris of my crumbled foundation

my toppled wall of protection

swept away in the fury of my soul’s fevered storm

and none I am sure shall remember me

for there was never anyone who held me tenderly

and these words shall not be shared

for who shall read the words of the fool

and the ventures he foolishly dared

they only laugh

as they find themselves held

in the memory of their once bright reflection

now tarnished and forever dogged and stained

as I prepare to release the vengeance of my seething wrath

as I await life’s final vicious bite

here in the decimated ruins of my own blind decisions

that sift in the sands of my sinking despair

I grin at the feel of my thumping stone

and the fortress of my fortitude

shall rise comprised of larger and thicker bricks

and my voice shall not sing sweet

to the riddle of loves languid mockery

but blow hard in much harsher tones

for the flesh of the idiot son shall be peeled

marking the grand return of the assembled iron shell

of the once silent giant

the now cold and violent giant

who shall be the guardian of all I hold dear

until I am gone

for the dye of my truly open eye

has now finally and fully been cast

until there is nothing left but the echoes of this pen

and the filtering shadows that flutter

in the wake of a poet’s ash



Thoughts of a Single Man © 2014 tm